


Fifteen Things Learned on the Road Trip

by Nimuesdream



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 03 Finale, Road Trips, things that accidentally happen on road trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 03:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4044016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimuesdream/pseuds/Nimuesdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pretty much what it says on the title. Set post 3x23.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifteen Things Learned on the Road Trip

1\. Oliver turns out to be a cuddler. For all of his previous fondness for shoulder touching, hand holding, continually entering her personal space, Felicity had never, ever expected this.

To be fair, neither had Oliver.

2\. Some instincts are hard to squash. Like, say, the need to chase a mugger down city streets and throwing the guy up against a wall. Or the need to send a video of the original mugging, without the chasing, with the mugger's face clearly visible, to the local cops.

They don't discuss this.

3\. They both still experience night terrors, Felicity every few weeks, Oliver a bit more often. 

Somehow, during those night terrors, Felicity can remain unaware of anything else in the room – the way her hands absolutely aren't tied, the way a weapon absolutely isn't really against her neck even though she can feel it right there – except him. Never him.

Half of her night terrors are about him, after all.

Somehow, during those night terrors, Oliver can attack everything else in the room – beds, chairs, otherwise harmless television sets – but not her. Never her. 

She reminds him of that every morning after a nightmare. He always squeezes her shoulder or hand in return, his eyes a little distant for a moment, sometimes longer, before he looks back into her eyes, and smiles.

Half of his night terrors are about her, after all.

The nights right after the night terror nights tend to make up for a lot of this.

4\. Oliver has just a bit – a bit – of a shoe fetish. Specifically, shoes on Felicity. Flats, heels, sandals, it doesn't really matter.

5\. Other instincts that are apparently impossible to squash: stopping bank robbers. They aren't in Starling City. The police here are more competent. Probably more competent. Oliver and Felicity don't really have to do this. They certainly don't need to study the patterns of the bank robberies. They certainly don't need to buy two black ski masks from one store and black clothing from another store. And they absolutely, positively, certainly don't need to break into the home of one of the robbers, especially given that Oliver doesn't have his bow with him, especially given that Felicity is only wearing a thong beneath her black pants. Something that ordinarily would have distracted Oliver, quite a lot. And especially since Felicity just happens to be wearing adorable but not exactly practical strappy sandals, which are distracting Oliver more than he wants to admit, along with the tightness of those black pants. And they probably didn't need to kiss for good luck once they were inside, especially since that kiss lasted a little longer than a typical good luck kiss – Oliver blames Felicity's pants for that. Felicity blames movies. Also the fact that when Oliver is heroing, he's pretty much irresistible. Even if they are absolutely not being heroes right now, even if Oliver has just taken down two of the bank robbers. And they probably didn't need to threaten the robbers with exposure on every social media on earth, especially after Felicity had – ooops – transferred the large sums in their personal accounts to UNICEF. 

Hitting the ringleader in the face, though?

That might have been needed.

She'd said something inappropriate to Felicity, after all.

6\. Felicity is obviously going to need to spend a lot more time in shoe stores.

7\. And not that they are ever going back to a vigilante life – no, they aren't, that's clear, Oliver's Oliver now, not the Arrow, not a superhero – but when they do – not that they are going to – Felicity is going to have to wear clothing that does not give Oliver any ideas whatsoever. Like a burlap sack. Well, maybe not a burlap sack, since Felicity would almost certainly look adorable in one and he would want to pull the burlap sack off her, but something. Also, practical shoes. To go back to the shoe store thing. 

8\. One reason why they aren't going back to the vigilante life – paying careful attention to news items that might indicate an increased amount of metahuman or mob or ARGUS activities doesn't count, everybody does that, not just former vigilantes who are way, way past that kind of thing, even if Felicity is surreptitiously checking her phone from regular messages from Team Flash and even if she overhears Oliver giving tactical advice to Thea, they're still done, done, done – as it turns out, Oliver does have a tentative plan for the future. He wants to design and make fine jewelry. He's a bit worried about telling Felicity about this. It's not the Oliver she knows, he thinks, even though she's watched him make plenty of arrowheads and work with metals, even though he's occasionally told her that he likes doing things with his hands – a statement that she's frequently misinterpreted. 

When he finally gets around to explaining his thoughts about making jewelry, she kisses those hands thoroughly, which leads directly to other things that Oliver is very, very good at. Felicity thinks that might be the best night they've ever had together, until Oliver proves otherwise the next morning. And then the next night. 

9\. Watching Avengers films with Oliver is just not a good idea. He keeps critiquing Hawkeye's archery techniques and the group tactics, when all Felicity wants – needs – to do is admire Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth and sigh a bit over the Hulk and Scarlet Witch ("He should just go for her." "Really, Oliver? Really?" "She can tell when he's going to turn into a monster. Oh, that is NOT –" "Note to self: Future Felicity is seeing these films with Thea and Laurel. At least they have souls." "This Cap guy does not know what he's doing.") None of which Oliver is going to let her do, at least during the Avengers.

10\. Other things that are not a good idea: 

Sharing a tube of toothpaste. Incredibly enough, Oliver – former billionaire even now largely unconcerned about money (well, the life insurance payouts from his mother and the astonishing increase in both stock prices and dividends for the former QC now Palmer Technology stock he still owns do make it a lot easier to not worry a lot about money), Oliver, former vigilante and general breaker of rules, is the one who absolutely, positively, has to squeeze from the bottom of the tube of toothpaste and roll the tube as he goes up. Felicity can squeeze from anywhere. 

Felicity saying she can squeeze from anywhere while in the passenger seat of a car; that almost got them both arrested. 

Letting Felicity drive after that particular incident but before Oliver has been able to put the aftereffects of the squeezing comment completely out of his mind. 

Suggesting to Felicity that she and Tony Stark also might be related.

Asking if Felicity has ever created something like Ultron.

Forgetting to call Thea on a regular basis, no matter how good the post-Ultron fight sex is and how much that made everything else leave Oliver's memory.

11\. For such a comparatively small person, Felicity can take up an enormous amount of the bed. She sprawls. Everywhere. For such a tall person, Oliver barely takes up any of the bed; he's learned to sleep in tight places. 

The best way to deal with this is to sleep spooned together. And hope Oliver doesn't kick.

12\. Sleeping spooned together, however, can create just a bit of a problem if – to bring up the sort of thing that can happen to anybody and absolutely, positively, does not have anything to do with the way they used to spend their nights – a couple of Bratva members who just happened to recognize Oliver decide that they want to know what, exactly, Oliver is doing in their city and how many people Oliver is planning on killing this time and if he's happened to bring along any of Anatoly's special vodka with him, a perfectly friendly conversation that might have gone better if Oliver hadn't forgotten that his hand was entangled with Felicity's so that when he rose up to punch them, her hand did too. Or if they just happen to be in a hotel room right next to the one where a few Triad members just happen to be discussing human trafficking which Oliver just happens to overhear and which he just happens to think is a conversation that really should be recorded and forwarded to at least the local police department (because of course they aren't contacting ARGUS any more, even if Felicity still spends occasional down moments hacking into ARGUS satellites just for fun), only trying to move apart from Felicity does not happen as quietly or as easily as it really should, leading to a squawk, a fallen lamp, a rather tense standoff between Oliver, Felicity and three Triad members and a rather embarrassing and expensive conversation with a displeased hotel manager. 

13\. Oliver still sucks at lying. 

14\. It's not just Central City anymore, or even just Central City and Starling City anymore. They hear reports of what are obviously metahumans everywhere: Las Vegas, Coast City, Boston, Metropolis, Toronto, Gotham. Even Vancouver, which Felicity once described as the last place she could ever imagine having any sort of chase scene or anything that looks like an action sequence happening in its streets. 

It's clearly not something the local police will be able to handle. Oliver flinches at the thought of ARGUS increasing its involvement; when Felicity notices, he lists some of the stuff that happened in Hong Kong. Not all of it. He goes back to the easier subject of metahumans. Barry's not going to be able to handle it either. At least not all of it. He's not fast. They're going to need something else, he thinks. Maybe someone else – maybe a lot of someone elses. Something focused on justice. A team – well, maybe several groups of teams or partners or solo people working in different areas.

"A League," Felicity suggests happily.

"We're not calling it that." 

Both of them notice the word "we."

Neither one of them mentions noticing it.

15\. Little things. Big things. The many different ways Felicity likes her coffee, versus Oliver's unchanging need for pure, black, "unruined" stuff. Movies. Television shows. Music. Things they did when they were kids. Things they've always wanted to do. Things they will do. Why you can't trust Oliver on a waterslide, or Felicity on a roller coaster. Why they can always, always trust each other beyond this. How easy it is to spend an entire day in bed. How easy it is to laugh.

How amazing five month long road trips are. How amazing vacations – real vacations – are, even if this wasn't a vacation, but a lifestyle change. Really. Because they aren't heroes anymore. Really. They're something else.

A something else that is already planning to fit a few more long vacations in between all of the heroics.


End file.
